Voice of Experience: Julia Hoggett, Head of Covered Bonds and FIG Flow Financing EMEA and Head of Short Term Fixed Income Origination EMEA, Bank of America Merrill Lynch

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

One of the most important lessons Julia Hoggett learned early in her career was the importance of being herself. Now Head of Covered Bonds and FIG (Financial Institutions) Flow Financing EMEA and Head of Short Term Fixed Income Origination EMEA at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Hoggett explained, “Bringing your whole self to work can only help you advance.”

Early in her career, she hadn’t quite learned this lesson. “There was a sense that I needed to assume a professional face, both as a woman and as an investment banker. Luckily I learned that bringing the real me to the office made me better at my job.”

Career in Banking

After training as a sociologist and economist at Cambridge, Hoggett’s initial work studying the challenges faced by the least developed economies led to frustration. “It was the politics,” she explained. “I felt that the source material I was studying was so imbued with the politics of the writers that it was hard to get a clear, unbiased picture of the real situation on the ground.”

“My father suggested that by working in investment banking in emerging markets, I could quickly learn about the realities of those economies.” She continued, “So I joined JP Morgan, as they had an excellent training program.” She mentioned that she was also impressed by the firm’s non-discrimination policy, which included protections for lesbian and gay workers, unlike some of the other firms that had offered her a position.

Hoggett excelled in her work, and she was soon given advanced assignments for someone of her level of experience. She began advising clients in the public sector, covering Aaa institutions and raising funds in the bond market. “Having worked in the emerging markets team for several years, I then joined the team covering Aaa Sovereign and Supranational clients,” she said.

Then she was ready for a change. “I chose to take a role as Head of Capital Markets at DEPFA, a large bank in Ireland, to see if I could ‘walk the walk,’ when I had been ‘talking the talk’ as an advisor for so many years,” she explained. “So I left investment banking and became a client. In my new role, I learned a lot about how to manage banking relationships.”

Eventually she was asked to become a managing director (or CEO) at DEPFA ACS bank. ‘Then Lehman happened,” she said,  “and ultimately the HRE Group to which DEPFA belonged required State assistance and everyone in the banking industry was then focused on the enormous restructuring challenges that followed.” Hoggett then took a year out to address a back problem. She added, “It was also an opportunity to spend more time with my two young children.”

When she came back to work, she took a position at BofAML, building out the firm’s provision of senior secured and unsecured bond market financing to FIG clients in EMEA. “I returned back to the other side of the table, hopefully using what I’d learned as an issuer to be a better advisor again.”

Hoggett said she loves the pace of working in the bond market. “It’s not an understatement to say that events in a completely different time zone can completely change my day. As a political scientist at heart, this is fascinating to me. You can’t presume that any one thing is going to be the same day in, day out.”

Despite having become a Managing Director at 30 and a Bank CEO at 34, Hoggett says her proudest achievement is in building an effective team at DEPFA. “Like many women who finish one project and move on to the next, I do not often give myself credit for what I have done. In fact, I have had to be taught by others occasionally to sit back and count what I have come to call ‘life’s little victories’ in order to recharge my energies and, indeed, confidence for the next challenge. I am proud of many of the transactions that I have executed for my employers and clients, and I am pleased when advice I give to a client is genuinely additive for them. But putting together and managing a good team of people who are happy to come to work every day and add material value is what brings me the most pride – if you could call it pride.”

She continued, “My work at the moment is also intellectually challenging and satisfying. I’m trying to determine how banks’ balance sheets can and will and should be organized following the revolutionary regulatory changes that have been undertaken recently. We are very proactive in engaging our clients in discussions about this.”

”Investment banking, and banking as a whole, is going through a multiyear process of restructuring itself in the new regulatory environment. As bankers, issuers, and investors, we have to continually challenge any assumption that we have considered and address not only the practical implications but also the unintended consequences of the changes being implemented.”

Women in Banking

Are there barriers for women in the banking world? Hoggett answered, “In a sense the answer is no, and in another sense, the answer is many. It depends on the nature of the individual.”

She pointed out that the industry can be demanding. “It is a fast paced business that puts huge demands on people. But it’s very straightforward – one of the things I like about this industry is that it’s a meritocracy. At BofAML, we do this very well, getting past the perception that it’s an industry for men. The culture is changing.”

On the other hand, she continued, “Investment banking is innately more masculine than feminine. Women tend to take the long view. I think institutions make better decisions when they have a gender mix.” At DEPFA, she recalled, her capital markets team had a 50/50 gender ratio and the effect was noticeable.

Another factor that makes the industry tough for women, she explained, is that the time when careers are beginning to flourish often coincides with women’s childbearing years. “You spend most of your twenties doing a form of apprenticeship, working long, demanding hours. By the time you’re ready to unleash that knowledge and experience, it’s also time to leave to have children.”

BofAML is working to coach its women and its managers on this issue, she says, and helping women to come back to work after having children. “It does place more pressure on women taking this time out. It’s something we work hard to address.”

She continued, “I’m in an unusual position, being an openly gay woman in banking for 13 or 14 years. The challenges on a woman who is a primary caretaker are far greater than any challenges I’ve faced – because they’re structural, not attitudinal.”

As the breadwinner in her family, she added, “All the time I am not with my kids I find difficult and a wrench. But I reconcile it that my obligation to sustain a successful career is very much in support of them and affording them the best opportunities I can. But it would be foolish to suggest that a career that takes you away from your children can only be justified on the rationale of supporting them. If you cannot get a huge amount personally out of the process, intellectually and otherwise, then I believe that the efforts involved in this industry would be hard to generate and sustain.”

LGBT Women in Banking

“I was never brought up with the notion that there was something I couldn’t do,” Hoggett said. “And when I began my career, I chose to work for a US firm that didn’t discriminate against gays and lesbians, a firm that wanted the whole me – and these values are at BofAML too.”

Nevertheless, she said, she spent her first few years of work in the closet. “I came out somewhat accidentally,” she said. When Hoggett was having back surgery, one of her managing directors came to visit her in the hospital. Hoggett’s partner also happened to be there, and Hogget introduced them to one another. “It was only some 3 days after when the initial drugs from the operation had worn off that I realized I might just have come out at work,” she said with a laugh.

She was surprised at the positive response from her boss. “I was actually promoted while I was still on sick leave,” she continued. “My boss encouraged me to get actively involved in the LGBT network at the bank for the benefit of the bank. It was the institutional confirmation that they wanted the whole me.”

“I’m lucky it happened two years into my career, rather than 22 years in,” she added.

When she moved to DEPFA, she continued, “I knew I needed to be direct.” The bank had to design a new health insurance policy that would cover her partner and children.

“If you feel you are in a safe environment, and you wish to come out, I would always advocate coming out sooner rather than later,” she said. “It gets harder the longer you wait – and you have more people to come out to.”

“You are more effective when you bring your whole self to work. The act of staying in the closet is exhausting. It may be different for other people, but I do believe I’m more effective being me, than if I were in the closet. It was a difficult choice to make, but since then it’s only helped.”

Advice for Professional Women

Hoggett’s key advice for women in the industry is, “Be yourself.” She explained, “Everything that has got you to this point will benefit you. This is an industry that values diversity. I hope the days when women had to put on shoulder pads and lower our voices like Margaret Thatcher are over.”

She continued, “Given the work my mother does, she was and is often the only woman in the room. Her career, and those of women like her, has made it easier for me – if only to have the example and the proof that it can be done. I am very grateful to her and many other women who have gone before me. Unfortunately, in some rare cases, because they had such a hard fight to fight, there is an armor that they have had to carry. I think sometimes it can make them less approachable for later generations. As the need for the armor falls away, so, hopefully, interaction between the generations can become easier.”

Hoggett encourages senior women to embrace their position as role models so younger women can learn from their experiences. “The women’s revolution showed us that, in theory, women can have it all. We can, but it does not make achieving it or sustaining it any easier. The more support we can give one another, the more we can prove to one another that it can be done, the more we will see women rising through the system.”

BofAML has a number of groups and networks in support of diverse individuals at the bank, Hoggett said. In addition to being co-chair of the gay and lesbian network this year, she is also a member of LEAD for Women. “We have very visible networks, and make conscious efforts to ensure the concerns of women are being shared. And senior men and women are encouraged to participate in diversity and inclusion work.”

“I’ve never felt uncomfortable,” she continued. “I genuinely feel that this is a very inclusive culture. Our intentions as far as diversity and inclusion are concerned live within our culture.”

In Her Personal Time

Hoggett commutes from London to Ireland on the weekends to be with her family. “It was a difficult choice not to move the children to London, but they are very settled in Ireland, have a strong support network, a great school, and proximity to the sea and the mountains and simply more open space. I feel their quality of life in London simply would not be as good.”

“But now on the weekends I see them in a full-on, concentrated way. I think a great deal of parents face these difficult, but necessary, decisions.”

“So I spend my weekends putting stabilizers on my daughter’s bike, and taking them off my son’s,” she added with a laugh.